“Just a Bullet Away” ( Beyond Magnetic, 2011)ġ45. “We Did It Again” (w/ Ja Rule & Swizz Beatz) ( Swizz Beatz Presents G.H.E.T.T.O. “You Really Got Me” (w/ Ray Davies) ( See My Friends tribute album, 2011)ġ48. Back to the front, let’s ride the lightning.ġ49. Hence, we have ranked all 151 songs in Metallica’s back catalog - official releases only, with only the most famous version of each song included - to parse which of their post-imperial hits can actually stand up next to their accepted classics in the year 2015. It’s worth taking the time to remember the original run that established Metallica as one of the greatest, most important American bands in all of rock history, and also to look back at their more controversial last 20 years of music, hopefully with less bleary eyes than the first time around.

This is all to say: There are kids starting college this fall that have never lived in a world in which Metallica wasn’t at least a little bit a punch line, a sad state of affairs for the once-unassailable metal lords.

Next year will mark the 20th anniversary of the international side-eye that greeted Load in 1996 just last weekend, we passed the 15-year mark on Napster shutting down, largely as a result of drummer Lars Ulrich’s heel turn against his file-sharing fans. Anger in 2003 than that LP was from the world-conquering Black Album in 1991. It’s difficult to believe, but we’re now farther removed from the release of Metallica’s psychotherapy-bred St.

Metal gear rising ost here i come